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December 05, 2007

Bouncing Balls of Evil

Bouncing Balls of Evil

Despite their name, Bouncing Balls of Evil are one of Hell's less nasty toys. In fact, Heaven makes their own versions - not that either type is all that common. The name comes from the prototype, which was placed inside a rubber sphere and activated by bouncing it against a wall: modern versions have a timer, for reasons which should become obvious quickly.

A Bouncing Ball of Evil is a one-shot Disturbance generator. The metaphysical parts of it are made out of shards of broken Hearts, which a): is fairly creepy to most celestials and b): means that the item takes on the metaphysical 'signature' of the unlucky celestial that donated the shards. This allows the item to generate a "pulse" of Disturbance. Generally, the pulse will appear identical to the one generated by a demon killing (+10) a human with 3 Corporeal Forces (+3) while spending 2 notes of Essence (+2); the total amount of Disturbance generated can be reset to between 12 and 18. The item is activated via timer: up to one hour can be set. Also, if the angel who "donated" the original shards had Discord at the time of their Hearts breaking (the default) a Ball will also show up on an Ofanite of Judgment's scan, even after the item has been activated. Recharging a Ball is possible, but requires time, resources, and a specialized skill set not usually found among PCs.

Bouncing Balls of Evil are usually only given out as part of a specific mission: they can disrupt Tether formation fairly comprehensively, and neither Heaven nor Hell really wants to get into a scenario where both sides are tossing them around casually. But they are useful as distractions. For that matter, they are equally useful for people trying to fake an murder, or make an assassin appear to be celestial in nature, or fake being a celestial in general... there are a number of subtle ways to use a Ball, and both the Host and the Horde approve of subtle.

Not that any of this matters to the Servitors of Dark Humor who like to steal crates of the things, put them in a school bus with a bunch of manikins and twenty gallons of ketchup, set them off, and then blow up the bus after the weeping angels arrive...